


Something Old, Something New

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dubious Consent, Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest, Stridercest - Freeform, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During year three on the meteor, Karkat asks how Dave lost his virginity and Dave tells a story that starts with, "It was summer, and I was thirteen."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. space boyfriends

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write a fic with both dave/karkat & dave/bro because they're my favourites. so much good stridercest on here i dunno if i can do it justice!
> 
> i'm not crazy about writing dave at 13 but since it's fitting with the actual homestuck timeline it wouldn't make sense for him to be any older. i feel weird about it but i think it'll turn out.
> 
> this will have a second chapter which'll be longer, and maybe a short third. TELL ME IF YOU LIKE IT YO

Dave wasn’t surprised that it had taken a long time, he’d expected that. Given the circumstances—in such close, weird quarters, after having temporarily shared the same girlfriend and broken up with the same girlfriend, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. But being a Knight of Time he was surprisingly patient, and he waited. They had three years to kill, which started out as an unthinkable amount of time to a thirteen year old but had become nothing quickly in the eyes of a sixteen year old. They were tired, and if anything, it wasn’t a long enough break.

He wasn’t sure when the attraction first started, but it was very gradual. He missed his friends. He was pissed and sad; he missed John, who he couldn’t even talk to, and he missed Jade and he missed Rose even though he could see her whenever he wanted, but she had been drinking lately and it didn’t suit her, and that made him sad too. He hadn’t liked Karkat at _all_ at first, what with everything happening with Terezi, but they’d become friends quickly almost out of necessity. They were both angry and achingly lonely and it fit.

And he wasn’t unattractive. When it came to trolls Dave wasn’t sure what he did find attractive and it was all really weird and foreign but he surprised even himself with how quickly he adapted to the idea of them, as real living bug-like aliens, but also people, but not humans. A boy with big wiry hair and little candy corn horns and body issues he didn’t like to talk about but obviously grappled with. It wasn’t what he was used to, but he liked him, and the thought of liking someone again made him feel a lot less alone. 

But Dave being who he was and Karkat being who _he_ was, he first brought it up on Pesterchum. At first leaving himself room to back out of it as a joke, then, based on Karkat’s unusual shocked silence and not the rage he expected, more seriously. He didn’t know what words to use, how to sound honest but not too serious and not too gay but definitely gay enough, and he got it out in the end, albeit sounding a little less aloof than he would have liked. Karkat got embarrassed and logged off, then logged in again five minutes later and said “FINE. WHATEVER. GOOD.” 

Dave immediately regretted not talking in person, because it took another week for them to be able to look each other in the eye again with their new, secret knowledge. He wished he’d just been cool and bold and Clark Gable about it, sweeping him off his feet, kissing him so hard his face hurt, classic and impressive and adult about it. But it was too late now, and Karkat probably would have punched him, anyways. Karkat came to his room when he’d worked up the courage, after everyone was asleep, and pretended like he wasn’t embarrassed beyond belief and intensely curious about human anatomy. Dave pretended like he’d had sex with Terezi to make Karkat mad. When they started having sex a month later, he pretended at first that Karkat wasn’t bad at it, then he didn’t have to pretend anymore.

Dave liked being with him. He was infuriating but that was cute, and they got along better when they weren’t viciously denying their attraction. Dave liked being with him so much that he was worried he was becoming someone who couldn’t _not_ be in a relationship, a serial dater. Already at sixteen he needed the closeness like a vice, the physical contact and the sex and the specialness of having someone who’s yours. And that was just how he was raised.

It took Karkat a few more months to finally ask him about it. Dave felt like he’d wanted to for weeks before that, but resolved not to say anything himself because he got an ache in his chest whenever he thought about it, and that hadn’t gone away for three years and wasn’t going to anytime soon. He knew Karkat could be kind of possessive—if you were blind, deaf, and dumb you could tell Karkat could be kind of possessive—and that he had been a virgin, so the question had been bubbling beneath the surface for some time. Especially with Dave’s egging him on about Terezi. 

 

They were lying in Dave’s bed, thundering hearts slowing, hair stuck to foreheads and drying. Both on their backs, Dave’s arm under Karkat’s neck, Karkat’s claws dancing fidgety against his bare hip. 

“You’re getting better at that,” Dave chuckled lowly, and when he turned his head towards him he wouldn’t admit to smelling his hair. It didn’t smell great, but there was something so intimate about the softness of the crown of someone’s head, and he liked that. His hair was black as night, glossy and wild. It wasn’t what he was used to, but he was adapting. 

“You too,” Karkat said slowly. His fingers stilled. “Have you done this … a lot? Before?”

Dave knew about this. Maybe jealousy, however faint, wasn’t so much a human thing but a universal constant. Like self-deprecation, and mourning.

Even though he was lying down, he tried to shrug. “I don’t know. Kind of.”

Karkat was quiet for a bit, processing that. Dave hadn’t tried to keep it a secret, he’d just explicitly not mentioned it, and that wasn’t quite the same. Not really. Even thinking about the conversation they were about to have if he didn’t do everything in his power to get out of it, which he wouldn’t because he was sort of relieved it was finally coming up, made his throat tighten. 

Karkat stretched his syllables when he spoke. “Terezi?”

Dave laughed. “No, I was just fucking with you. We never.”

“You shitstain.”

This left an obvious follow-up question that Dave tried to prepare an answer to that sounded as unaffected as possible. 

“Not … uh, John, then?”

Dave snorted despite himself. “John’s as sexy as, like ... a puppy. He isn't. I mean, we're best bros, but I’ve never … we lived across the country from each other, too, it didn’t really click. And I think he’s decided to be passionately straight.”

“Right.” So again, it begged to be asked, and Karkat asked it. “Do I know them?”

Dave pressed his lips together and moved his arm, stiff under Karkat’s neck, but he didn’t take it away. The longer this went on the more he liked the warm, dry feeling of troll skin. Same but different. Shades off, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I told you about my bro, right?”

“Your lusus-guardian thing? Yeah?” Karkat said, looking up at him. His intonation implied a silent ‘so?’, so Dave waited for him to get it. He didn’t.

“It was him.”

Dave glanced down at him out of the corner of his eye to judge his reaction. Did trolls have siblings? Would he understand the enormity of this, or was Dave worrying for nothing? They had lusi, and he assumed fucking _those_ was a taboo, but he didn’t think that could possibly happen given what they were. He knew from when he told him and John that they had to marry Rose and Jade that he was aware of incest, but to what degree he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if the cultural impact of incest could carry, but he would find out when Karkat finally spoke again.

“Your …” Dave saw him open his mouth and close it, searching for words like walking through a verbal minefield. “… your guardian was your _brother_ , right?”

“Mm-hmm.” He paused. “Well, now I guess he was, uh, genetically kind of my dad? I don’t know.”

“That’s —” Karkat wasn’t good with words. For all his rom-coms and Fabio-esque dime store novels, he could be surprisingly ineloquent when he didn’t have time to type his words out. Dave found it kind of charming; Rose was enough of a wordsmith to talk for everyone on this meteor and then some, so he'd started to like awkward. “—that’s not a normal thing, for humans, is it?”

“Nope.” Dave tried to push down the painful lump in his throat that formed whenever he thought about his brother, which he tried not to do every day and failed every night. Karkat wasn’t looking up at him anymore, but he didn’t look angry or disgusted. He looked like he was concentrating.

The question he asked next was unexpected. “How old was he?”

The past tense hit Dave in the stomach like a fist and he said, “Thirty, I think,” very quietly. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever spoken out loud about his bro to anyone, only in rare chat logs with John, Rose, and Jade. No one had ever known Bro, not like they’d known each other. They’d only ever known each other. 

“And you were?”

“You fucking _know_ how old I was,” Dave snapped, then regretted it.

Karkat thought about this, too. Dave struggled with himself, with memories he was doing everything to forget for his sanity and preserve for his heart at the same time. Ghostly blue veins in white biceps, invisibly blonde sandpaper stubble, the balmy Texas air. A broken sword. He tried not to let how upset he was show, but chewed the inside of his cheek none the less. He was mad that talking about this affected him so much, but it didn’t surprise him that it did. He just thought he’d handle it better. He was surprised.

Karkat’s fingers returned to his bare hip, now cold and suddenly goosebumped at his touch. He brushed him with his knuckles, kind of a reassuring pet. 

After a moment, he said, very, very quietly, “Were you in love with him?”

That past tense. Like death could make it go away; he was in love with the memories now. Trying not to be. Through the lump in his throat, Dave just blinked and nodded. Trying to grow up. 

Karkat turned his head against Dave’s shoulder, and he could feel his breath on his bare skin and he wanted to fuck again just to forget for another fifteen minutes about Bro. That wasn’t why Dave was with him, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t play a factor. He was surprised at how well Karkat was taking this, obviously taking into consideration that Bro had died. He was tiptoeing. Being thoughtful, for once.

But then he asked, “Can I ask how that happened? Like, how it was. For you.” He was looking up at him, and touched his mouth to his shoulder as he spoke. He hastily added, “I mean, if you want. You don’t have to talk about it. Sorry.”

Dave was torn, and laughed hoarsely. He raised his hand and ground the heel of his palm into one of his eyes, watching shapes and colours of pressure dance behind his closed eyelid. 

“Fuck. I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure he could get through a single story without fucking _crying_ at this point, because saying this out loud was so much harder than thinking about it in your head, your voice gets all thin and your eyes ache and your ears pop. But he wanted to tell him, if only to tell _someone_. John didn’t know and Jade didn’t know, but he felt like Rose had figured something was going on even if she never mentioned it. She could always see things people missed. He wasn’t about to ask her, not only because she was his sister. He wasn’t proud of himself, but the heart wants what it wants. “Yeah, alright. Story time.”

“Okay.” Karkat shifted and pulled the thin comforter out from underneath them and over their skinny naked bodies, kicking Dave’s crumpled laundry off the mattress. 

“You won’t get pissed?” Dave asked warily, sitting up on his elbows. He already felt better not keeping the secret anymore, but never in a million years dreamt that he would be telling it to Karkat. Not that he thought he’d ever be his boyfriend, either. 

“Shut up and tell the fucking story,” Karkat yawned, rolling onto his side to watch Dave as he settled back and sighed.

“Fine.” He took a deep breath. “It was summer, and I was thirteen.”


	2. dead boyfriends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lied, this'll be three parts! i like it a lot. but it's dave telling the story so it's kind of his voice but kind of my own, so it's not perfect.

To be exact, I think it was August. And it was a Texas August, which was hot as a rattlesnake’s taint. You could see the heat warping the air off the asphalt and I’d burn red like a lobster if I was outside for longer than twenty minutes at a time. We didn’t have air conditioning and the apartment was a fucking oven, so we’d sit around on bags of frozen peas and take turns rotating frozen water bottles through the freezer so we didn’t get dehydrated. We lived alone, just the two of us, in his shitty apartment.

So he was my brother, but kind of my dad, but I never thought of him like that despite the fact that he was old enough to be my dad. It was different, our relationship was never _normal_ _,_ not even at its most normal—we had literally no one else in our lives. No real parents, and I didn’t go to public school so I never had any peers, and John, Jade, and Rose were my only friends, and they lived miles and miles away. We were so secluded. He made money online and didn’t need any other job, it was always just us. That alone is pretty fucked up, so it’s no surprise what happened.

But I think he wanted more than anything to be my brother, not my dad, so he kept a kind of distance. No bedtime stories, no pats on the head and shit. He taught me how to fight, and he fucked with me constantly growing up. He’d booby trap the whole apartment, I think he was trying to get me killed. He was the most frustrating person I’ve ever met—maybe as bad as you. _Ow!_  Just kidding, he was worse. 

And I don’t know. Maybe it was not having a mom or not being around kids my age, or being raised by a man-child, but I grew up really quickly. I was never really smart, but emotionally I feel like I was leagues ahead of where I should’ve been, of kids my age. I’m not _bragging_ , it’s a fact. I mean, it was then, or I thought it was. And I hit puberty halfway through twelve, so there’s that. I’m not even a year older than John, but you’ve seen how different we look.

So we did and didn’t have boundaries. We’d say and do whatever we want to each other, but never really touched, unless it was a punch. He didn’t want to baby me. It was weird—just knowing he changed my fucking diapers when I was a baby is weird enough. But, I mean, we got over it. Obviously.

And thinking about it now, I don’t know why he was so surprised with how things turned out with us—and fucking _believe me_ , he was surprised. He did a fucking triple salchow off the handle, but that’s for later. I mean, he intentionally raised me to be just like him, what was I supposed to do? I grew up believing we were the best, that Striders were the best. So how could he assume I’d settle for anyone less than another Strider? He had it coming, he’s totally responsible for how fucking insufferable I am today. I’m him and he’s me, I don’t know why he thought I _wouldn’t_ want to date myself. He was me but older, stronger, and cooler. Picture me grown up, with a jawline that could cut glass, blonder hair, and biceps like _this_. He wasn’t skinny like me. He’s me version 2.0, bigger and better. 

So it was August, and we were on the roof. He’d just beat the shit out of me, which was normal, but hard to handle in that kind of heat. I was lying on my back staring up at the sky, feeling the sticky asphalt melting into tar, burning my back a little. I wasn’t wearing a shirt and neither was he, and I was looking at him. He was down near the other end of the roof looking off the edge, cause he never helped me up. He wanted me to do it myself, and if I couldn't get up, I layed there until I could. I remember watching the muscles in his back shift and wondering if I’d ever look like that, and then wondering what they would feel like if I touched them. 

I’d been thinking shit like this for a while, and I wasn’t stupid—I had an internet connection, brand new hormones and a lot of free time, I knew what sex was. I was well versed in the theoretics of sex, but being horny all the time and understanding how that was supposed to relate to your thirty year old brother-dad were two totally different ball games, and I obviously wasn’t going to talk to him about it. I figured he’d beat the shit out of me, humiliate me, and then things would be weird, and when he was the only person in my life I didn’t want to fuck things up with him. So normal brotherly affection blurred lines and secretly bled into this deeper kind of stuff I didn't know what to do with, where I thought about his hands and his voice and I imagined the parts of him I didn’t know for sure yet.

And I felt kind of guilty, but not really. The taboo of incest didn’t make sense to me, there was no logic to it in our case. No one could get pregnant, so there was no biological basis, and there was no one to find out—no parents, teachers, pastors, no community at all. And it would be consensual. It was just us, so what did it matter? Well, John didn’t like him. If John found out he would probably have called the cops, but it was nothing to hide it from him. I knew it was gross not only because of the brother thing, but because of the … how many years? A seventeen year age gap, I think. He could’ve gone to jail. But it always could have been worse, it didn’t matter to me. There was no one around to find out.

I still didn’t think it could work though, but you know me. I had to try. I was some gross, skinny little thirteen year old boy, and he was this giant person built like a Greek god. The attraction would obviously be lopsided, if there at all. But I couldn’t _not_ try, because you never know. He was fucked up in some ways I did know about, so I figured he had to be fucked up in some ways I didn’t know yet.

So, August. We went back inside when I could stand and he flipped me an ancient pack of frozen peas to hold on my shoulder because he punched me really hard and it was kind of swelling. The air was particularly still and stale and we sat around in our boxers because the thought of clothes was totally unbearable. Looking at him was totally unbearable, I was dying. He was glowing with sweat, and I felt weird and ugly next to him when he sat with me. I felt like a giant bruise. He jokingly offered me a beer and I wanted to take it but I knew he wouldn’t give one to me.

Thinking about it now, I was such a fucking dweeb. He was playing with his phone and I looked over at him and said something like, “What do you do if you like someone?” Like _that’s_ how you convinced a grown man that you weren’t a kid anymore. I was such an idiot.

I remember he gave me the funniest look. Crossed between a smirking bully and a flustered dad. 

“Dude, you can’t pretend you don’t know about the birds and the bees when I _know_ you keep a box of kleenex next to your bed.”

I went red. I used to blush more then, and I hated it.

“Fuck you, not _that_ , I’m not an idiot.” I rubbed my cheek. My hand was freezing from holding the melting peas. “I mean like _telling_ someone you’re into them, or whatever.”

His eyebrows went up. “Harley?”

“What? _No_.” And maybe I should have lied. I did like Jade, and I thought I _like_ liked her for a long time, when we were younger and I thought I maybe still liked girls. I kind of wish I liked Jade. _Ow!_  


“Rose?” 

“It doesn’t matter.”

_“Egbert?”_

“Bro, shut up. Never mind.”

No matter how hard I tried, he always made me sound like his kid brother and it was embarrassing as fuck. 

He looked back down at his phone. 

“Well, depends on who. You make a move, say or do something to let ‘em know, but leave yourself room to pretend it’s a joke if they’re not down. That’s your safety.” He shrugged. "Works for me."

I looked over at him. Being as blonde as he was he didn’t have much chest hair, and was tanner than me. He spent more time on the roof than I did, I think. I looked away. _God_ , you should have seen him. I didn’t know if his own advice would work on him because it was a hard thing to joke about when you were related, but I took my frozen peas and went into my room to think about it.

 

Then it was the middle of the night. I was still up and I knew he was up because I could see the computer glow from under his door. It was like three in the morning, but we were both fucking nerds and always up late. I was talking to John but then he’d gone to bed, and then I was alone in the quiet of my room and I figured, why not? I had a plan. 

I don’t think he knew this, but I always slept in one of his old t-shirts. It was big and faded and threadbare and hung off me like a trash bag, not quite to my knees, and didn’t smell like him anymore but I liked it. I took it from his room once. It had the Old Milwaukee girl on it. So I put that on and nothing else, not even my shades, and crept out into the hall. 

I didn’t knock but pushed his door open really quietly, half expecting to find him jerking off. He wasn’t. He was wearing a wifebeater and low sweatpants and sat slumped back in his computer chair, reading something on the screen. He hadn’t heard me open the door. 

In retrospect, I don’t know if going with ‘cute’ was the best plan of action. I guess I figured he’d never see me as an equal, not at thirteen, so I thought if I acted like a kid there was a _slight_ chance that, in all his weird secret shit, there was some penchant for little boys. Knowing him, it didn’t seem so crazy. The worst case scenario was him not caring at all—if he got mad at me, if he freaked out, at least it meant the thought of it _affected_ him, and he wouldn’t just blow it off and ignore me. I kind of wanted to see him get mad, anyways.

I pulled the hem of the shirt down. The neckline hung low and almost translucent with age. 

Very quietly, I said, “Dirk?”

He spun his chair around. “What are—” and he stopped when he saw me, and sat up. He didn’t say anything for a second. He looked at the shirt, started to say something once, and stopped. “Are you sleepwalking?”

I looked him in the eye. This late at night, he wasn’t wearing his shades either. I remember not knowing the last time I saw his eyes. 

“No.”

He just stared at me. Honestly, to this day I’m fucking _shocked_ that he put the pieces together so quickly. I didn’t even think there were pieces to put together, but I guess I wasn’t as coy as I’d thought. Maybe it was the look on my face or how I was standing or how I called him Dirk or _what_ , I’ve got no fucking idea, but for the first time in my life I saw him look kind of distraught, and he said, “Aw, _shit_.”

I got nervous. 

“What?” I could feel the doorknob pressing into my spine behind me. I thought about how I was never in his room and it smelled so strongly of him and I loved it. Like dust and sweat and his douchebag cologne. 

“You weren’t talking about _me_ today, were you?”

I don’t think he could see me go red in the dark. “What?”

“You _know_ what, you little shit!” I’d never seen him look so genuinely surprised, it was hilarious.

Now that it was happening, I didn’t know how to fess up. I started to say a million sentences but they all ran together so I went, “Uh …”

“Tell me what you’re doing here." His voice was low and even.

I could feel my heartbeat in my eyeballs. “I wanted to talk?”

“About?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at three in the morning, half fucking naked.” His face was totally deadpan. 

“I always sleep like this,” I snapped in my defense.

He looked me in the eyes again and it scared the hell out of me. He knew now, and if we weren’t on the same page yet, we were going to be. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t exactly look like he normally did. He was tense, I could see it in his shoulders.

He wasn't going to say anything, so I tried. “Okay.” I took a step into the room. “So.”

Nothing. Another step. He was watching me. He looked plastered back into his chair by centrifugal force. He _had_ to know what I wanted. “So,” I said again.

I took another step. 

He said, “So _what?_ I don’t know what the fuck you're talking about.”

I walked right up to him, and when he was sitting down we were the same height. I can’t remember the last time we looked at each other from so close in a non-violent situation, and he was really big close up. His eyes were so foreign to me and eerily like my own. We shared a lot of the same features, but we had different noses. His was like a falcon, mine’s like a dumb lamb. 

Well, thanks. 

It wasn’t until I reached out and touched his knee with my fingertips that he said anything.

He rolled the computer chair away with his feet, springing back. “Okay, _fuck_ , I knew it.” He got up stiffly and pointed down at the chair. “Sit.”

“No.” I clamped my arms to my sides.

He rolled the chair towards me. “Sit your skinny ass down or get out of my room right fucking now.”

I grudgingly agreed. His chair had to be as old as I was and it was super uncomfortable, the frame wearing through the cushion. My feet swung off the floor and I pulled the t-shirt down over my thighs, and I remember being proud that I caught him looking for a second. 

He was standing a few paces away, kind of pacing. There wasn't much room to pace. He was looking at me like I’d grown another head. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I do too.”

“Kid, you’re—what, how old are you now?”

“Almost fourteen.”

“Oh my _fuck_. _”_ He stood still. “See, you’re thirteen. You’ve got all these fucking hormones and changes and you don’t know what’s going on, you’re confused.”

“I’m not a fucking _baby_ ,” I snapped. 

“Give it a week, it’s a phase." He was half pleading with me. "You’re just a weird-ass kid and you’re messed up. You’ll forget about it next time you see a nice pair of tits, I guarantee it.”

“How about you give me some fucking credit? I know I don't like tits.” I sat forward. “I like you.”

He looked mortified. I was proud of myself. “Okay, I don’t give a shit if you’re gay, whatever, gold star. But that’s _fucked!”_

“It’s _not_ though,” I groaned. “It’s so not.”

“I’m thirty years old!”

“I can count.”

“I’m your _brother!_ I’m practically your fucking _dad!”_

“I _know!”_ We were both yelling. I was grabbing onto the computer chair like I’d fly off it if I didn’t, trying to pretend like my feet could touch the floor when I sat in it. “You don’t think I _thought about_ this?" I shouted. "Who would it fucking matter to? There’s _no one here,_ bro! There’s no one to fucking _care_ , it’s just us! We’re not gonna make flippered kids, you’re not gonna get arrested, no one’ll even know!”

He just kept staring at me. I’d never seen him so shocked, or shocked at all. He went to his bed over on the other side of me and sat on the edge, head in his hands. 

“We aren’t having this fucking conversation.”

“Too late. We’re in it. We’re the mayors of this conversation.”

“Dave, shut up.” He hadn’t called me Dave in a really long time. He only did when he was really sorry or really mad, and I was excited to figure out which one he was. He sighed. “It’s a phase.”

“It’s already been longer than that,” I said quietly. I didn’t want to tell him how long and when he looked up at me I could tell he really didn’t want to know. “I don’t know, I'm not saying it's not _kind of_ fucked," my voice got quieter. "It just makes sense to me, I guess.”

He hesitated. “Too fucking bad, kid. It’s … this is … it’s so _unfathomable_ a situation that … it’s not happening, you fucking know that. Never in a million goddamn years. You’ll grow out of it.”

“You wish,” I snorted. 

He was looking at me, a few steps away, his shitty old mattress sagging under his weight. When we had money for a new mattress, he’d given it to me and taken the old one. He'd have done anything for me, and it's funny that that stopped short of what we were talking about then. He rubbed a hand through his hair. “You don’t have a _choice.”_

“Like you’ve never thought about it!”

“I haven’t! Dave, you’re my little bro, you’re practically my kid! I fucking _raised_ you! That’s not how I do.”

“You’re thinking about it now, though.”

“You’re _making me!”_

I sat back in the chair. I stopped worrying about how the shirt was sitting and I touched my bare legs. I had a bruise above my knee from one of his kicks, but it would fade tomorrow. The mark on my shoulder would go through all the bruise phases though, from blue to purple to red to black to that nasty dark yellow. That was a bad one. I didn’t mind. 

He wouldn’t look at me then. He was genuinely upset and more than anything, I was pleased with myself. As irritating as he was, as cool and aloof and ironic and frustratingly unaffected, there he was, all fucked up like that because of me. I’d never really gotten a chance to fuck with him proper before, after so many years of him constantly fucking with me. 

“Well,” I said slowly, using my toes on the carpet to spin the chair back and forth, “how about this.”

He looked up a little, then down again. “What?”

“Kiss me, and—”

“Dave! Jesus fucking Christ.”

“— _l_ _isten_. Once. And if it feels weird and awkward and shitty like how it’s _supposed_ to feel when you kiss your baby brother, I’ll never mention this again, I swear. I’ll admit defeat.”

This makes him look at me, his eyebrows drawn and cautious. Eyes trained carefully on my face. I knew what he was thinking, and I wanted to make him ask. 

“And, if it doesn’t?” He tried to sound confident, like it was totally unthinkable that it wouldn’t feel weird, but I remember being more and more sure of myself by the second. He was so fucked. He knew it was a possibility.

“Does it matter? Humour me.”

I could hear the breath he took in from where I was sitting. I watched his chest expand and contract. 

“If you’re fucking with me, I’m going to beat you to within an inch of your motherfucking _life_ , I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I.” I stood up, and he watched me in horror.

He went on. “If this is some gay chicken bullshit, if you’re gonna tell your friends—”

“In what universe is this not insanely embarrassing for me too? Why the fuck would I joke about this?”

“Cause you’re a vicious little brat.”

I laughed, and then I was standing in front of him. His computer was behind me and I cast a shadow over most of him so I couldn’t see in the dark. The bed was taller than the chair had been so he was taller than me, I remember that. 

I cleared my throat. “Do you want me to sit, or …”

“How long do you think this is gonna take?”

“Never mind.” 

The neck of the shirt fell off one of my shoulders. He was staring at me. His eyes were orange, like mine are red, but his were always much brighter and they shone glassily. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him look so apprehensive in my life, before or after that, and it was awesome. I remember smiling at him, faces a foot apart, and that was when he screwed his eyes shut and kissed me.

I genuinely believe he meant to keep it short. I know him, and he’d meant for it to be a kiss you give your aunt. Like how you'd expected a forced kiss between brothers. But after the first split second, I knew I’d won. 

Because his mouth softened. It wasn’t a peck anymore, it was like … a press. One second, then two, then three. I didn’t know how to kiss, but I moved my lips on his, then after another second, he moved his. I was so excited I remember my arms went numb, and my hands balled into fists because I didn’t know what to do with them. All the blood rushed to my head. Five seconds. I was shocked at how soft his lips were, I didn’t know how soft another person’s lips would be. It wasn’t like kissing your hand. Six seconds, and he pulled back.

He wouldn’t look at me, but he didn’t move away or make me move. He was looking down at his knees and me just between them. 

He said, so quietly I thought I made it up, “Aw, _fuck.”_

I had to consciously try not to make my voice waver when I whispered, “Told you, bro,” staring at the hair hiding his eyes from so close.

“I’m not doing this, Dave.” His voice wasn't even anymore.

“Like hell you’re not.” I put my hands on his shoulders. He had really nice shoulders, so wide my hands felt tiny. His skin was hot. He looked up at me and I danced my fingers nervously on his back. I remember my heart beating so hard that my head hurt because of the look on his face. Seeing someone so strong with such a weird look of resignation was … I don’t know. Interesting. Crazy. I made it obvious that I was going to kiss him again, and I wouldn’t have been mad if he’d hit me, but he didn’t. He just grabbed my shirt—his shirt—and kissed me back.

 

 

Sixteen-year-old Dave ignored the ache in his head when he told that part, the feeling of holding back tears that was sickeningly familiar to him. Not that he was _going_ to cry, not that he _wanted_ to, but his head ached behind his eyes like he crying was anyways. It was like it was real again. More than anything, maybe even more than being here with Karkat now and having gone through everything they did, he wanted to be back in his bro’s room like he was that night. He wanted him to see who he'd become in the past three years, how smart he was and how cool and how much older, how tall and strong he’d gotten. But he knew that barring some unforeseen miracle, he never would. He’d wanted to be with him as an adult, to not be a stupid kid and show him what he was made of. He kind of wanted to be his boyfriend, as stupid as that felt to think. But it was too late for that.

He looked down at Karkat lying next to him, who had curled up during the story with the comforter to his chin, looking up at him. Dave closed his eyes for a second, looking up at the ceiling, and had his arm folded across his stomach so he could feel Karkat’s heart beating against his arm, the warm press of his body next to his, smooth legs all twisted up in his own, and he thought, _get it the fuck together_. _It’s done. Tell the story_.

Karkat quietly said, “That’s fucking crazy.”

He hadn’t wanted Karkat to feel bad, not really. A little jealous, maybe, and he knew he would be, because it was Karkat. He didn’t want him to know how upset talking about all this made him, he wanted the story to be sexy and funny and stupid so maybe it wouldn’t mean anything anymore. 

Dave turned his head and kissed him, and said, “It wouldn’t have worked if it was anyone else. No one else could have known how fucked up Striders could be, between the two of us. Homosexual, _xenosexual,_ no thanks to you, and, apparently a little pedo too. For the sake of his ego I tried to be surprised.”

Karkat snorted.

Dave continued, “So, it took a while after that.”

 

  

I slept in his bed that night, but we didn’t do anything. I slept with my back pressed to his chest, so numb with disbelief that it took me forever to fall asleep. He didn’t say a word after that, and I was so surprised that I didn’t have anything to say either, which pretty shocking in itself. I think he thought I would bug him about it. He tried ignoring me afterwards, which for him meant literally disappearing, but as much as I didn’t want to fuck it up I also wasn’t going to sit there and wait like a pussy. I didn’t see him for two days afterwards, and if I tried to go into his room at night he had it locked, which was straight up insulting. But I knew he’d give up eventually, or I hoped he would.

When I woke up on the third day I heard the shower running. Wearing just jeans and my shades, because it was almost noon and already it was hot, and I crept out of my room. I knew how fast he could move if he thought I was out here, so I leaned next to the door and waited silently. I heard the water shut off, the stall door creak. After a minute the bathroom door opened, and before he could step out into the hall, I swung out in front of him. He ran right into me, and that’s how I know he was still thinking about it, because normally his reflexes would have been way quicker. 

“Oh.” He looked down at me like we'd never met. He didn’t try to get away like I thought he would, just standing in the threshold. He had his boxers on and I don’t think he liked how I was looking. I always had, but he only started noticing it after this. “Sup.”

I looked up at him. I hated how tall he was, I had plans for fucking go-go-gadget legs just so I could look him in the eye. He had his shades on even coming out of the shower. I mean, I did the same thing.

“You know _‘sup_ ,” I said, trying to sound intimidating. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” he said, nudging past me more gingerly than he ever had. I think he was scared to touch me. “The cops are drafting up my arrest warrant as we speak, and I’m working on the rehearsed ‘convicted molester warning speech’ I’ve gotta give our neighbours door to door if we move.”

I followed him down the hall and said, “Sweet, I was just putting the finishing touches on the sob story I’ll give when they ask me to point to the little where’d-he-touch-you voodoo doll. We should compare notes.”

I didn’t even see him move, but I heard the air rush and then my head was cracking on the kitchen cupboards and there were two thumbs on my windpipe.

Before he could say anything, I coughed, “You started it, you asshole.”

I’d meant the jokes just now, but he growled, _“Don’t_ try to fucking pin this on me! You _know_ it was you!” My feet weren’t even touching the ground, not by a long shot. He was holding me against the kitchen cupboards, hanging above the counter. I remember not even caring about the pain in my neck or throat or head, just being shocked that he’d let me get so close. 

I didn’t care about correcting him. My hands were grabbing his arms to try to take pressure off my throat. His face was dizzyingly close to mine, again.

I thought he’d yell at me some more, but he hissed, “If you ever even _think_ this wasn’t your idea, if you ever tell one fucking person that it wasn’t _entirely_ your idea, I’ll make you wish you wish you’d never been born.”

We stared at each other through our shades. My feet dangled somewhere near his knees and my head was booming from being slammed into the cupboards and I could feel his pulse in the hand around my neck and the one on my ribs, keeping me up. 

So I said, “Okay.” Anything else sounded stupid. “Just don’t try to tell me I tricked you.”

He put me down on the counter and I sat looking at him for two seconds before he grabbed my face and kissed me. I had no idea how to kiss then, but _man_ was I down to learn. He grabbed my shoulders so hard I thought he’d shatter me, and he probably could have. 

Then it wasn’t just little kisses anymore, they were deeper; he was urgent and probably a little mad, and I was desperate after waiting so long. Kissing wasn’t hard—not that I was very good at it—but our shades hit so he pushed mine off onto my head and got to keep his own on. The kitchen was hot because the blinds were open and sun streamed in, and I remember feeling stupid because of how much bigger he was than me, how when he put his hand on my leg it almost covered it entirely. At the time, I honestly didn't think any of this was a big deal, but looking back on it ... I was  _thirteen_. 

We ended up jerking each other off but I don't remember who started it, not that it matters, but it would've been funny to know. It was like an out of body experience, I was so freaked out. Not like, _bad_ freaked out, but I mean, I was basically a kid. It was the first time anyone had ever touched me. He dropped me to sit on the counter, and my head was back against the cupboards and his head was next to mine, forehead pressed into the cupboard door. His hair was still wet and it made me feel all humid in the heat. His hand was big and made my dick feel small and I am very sure mine did the opposite for him. It didn't take long, not for either of us, which I now think is pretty fucking funny and I wish I'd had the understanding then to bust his balls about it. You don't come quick at thirty, which meant he was crazy into it, which is hilarious. And a little gross.

He'd pulled me to the edge of the counter so I was half in his lap and I came first, kind of onto him. And then he groaned into my ear and then _he_ was done, and my hands were shaking. He came on my jeans. He was breathing hard, which he didn’t even do when we fought, so I thought that was cool. But he was so weird about it, so infuriatingly casual. He just stepped back and looked at me, but like he wanted to pull his hair out. But it was hard to tell without seeing his eyes if he was embarrassed or something else. I pulled my shades back down. We were both kind of speechless, cause like, what are you supposed to say? _Thanks?_

So I just said, "Alright?"

And he rubbed his eyes and said, "Alright," without looking at me, and turned and left the room.

But it was okay after that first time. He'd put his arm across the back of the couch and not care if I leaned back into it, and he'd kiss me if I wanted. I slept in his bed most nights even though it was the shittier mattress because it seemed like the more normal thing to do. To not deny whatever it was, I guess. He did start smoking more, which he used to only do sometimes, but then he started smoking every day. I didn't care because smoking looks cool and I liked the smell, I was only mad because he never shared. I didn’t blame him for ramping it up though, because I can’t think of much more stressful than banging your thirteen-year-old brother.

But this was all maybe six months before we started the game, and it wasn't for another two after that that we had _actual_ sex. I harped on him about it after the first week, but he said no. He said it was a line he wasn’t going to cross and that he wasn’t going to _deflower_ me at thirteen, but I knew that was bullshit. If you’re gonna cheat on your diet, you don’t eat _half_ the cake, and I told him that. It didn’t matter to me when, but I knew we would, even if he didn't think so.

When we did … I don’t know. This is gonna sound stupid, but there were no words. I don’t even know how to describe it.

No, I'm fine.

It was the middle of the night again. I was on webcam with Jade and he came into my room. I saw him in my screen because I could see him in the tiny image of me below the image of her, and I turned around. He was leaning on the frame and looked incredibly out of place, which he was. He didn’t come in my room often, not only because it was messy as shit. It was such a kid’s room, and I think it made him uncomfortable? Like, a real reminder of how young I was. I never asked. 

He said, “You wanna order Chinese?” 

It was almost two in the morning. I grinned. “Does the tin man have a sheet metal cock?”

When I went out a while later, rubbing my ears from where my headphones sat for hours, he was walking around the kitchen talking on the phone with the grimy paper menu already in his hands because we ordered the same stuff every time. The apartment had finally cooled down after the day and I was wearing a sweater and boxers. 

It’s weird, but it’s like he was buttering me up. I think he finally felt bad about it, maybe because of what had happened but maybe cause he'd made up his mind. When he was off the phone he called me over and I hopped up on the table and looked down at him, sitting in a chair. 

I asked, “Did you ask for extra fortune cookies?”

“You know it.”

After a second, he put his hand on my leg and pinched it. 

“You’re so skinny, I don’t know _where_ you got that from. Better start bulking up.”

I looked at him. “I’ve got time.”

He didn’t say anything. I knew I shouldn’t bring my age up even distantly, because he obviously hated any reference to my age or his age or what we were doing, but I kept hoping it would eventually get funny and stupid like I wanted it to be, like it was no big deal. It still wasn’t, though. 

But we ate and hung out and it was fun. It was so late and I’d woken up early so I was deliriously tired, but it was cool to just _be_ with him again and pretend everything wasn’t fucked up, even if I wanted it that way. To be fucked up, I mean. We played video games and ate greasy Chinese food and I got carpet burn from fighting him when I beat him at Smash Bros. 

It must have been five in the goddamn morning when we stopped. The sky was getting pink. We were sitting on the floor in front of the couch with the little white containers of food scattered around us and also a bag of Cheetos, and he was laughing and seemed so happy and I just remember _looking_ at him and thinking how lucky I was.

... I'm  _fine_ , man. 

I asked, “Are you going to sleep?”

He hummed and took off his shades to rub his eyes. He only looked his age when he was tired, not that that was bad. He was ... I don't know. I don't want to say beautiful, but handsome sounds retarded. Gorgeous. Sorry, I don't know. Fine lines under his eyes, around his mouth. 

“Maybe,” he finally said, and before I could say anything he’d picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder. Literally, like I weighed nothing. He could have tossed me like a javelin.

“Aren’t you supposed to carry me all _bridal_ style to be romantic?” I asked, thumping my hands on his back, laughing.

“Keep dreaming, you're no bride.”

I got giddy when I realized he was carrying me to his room, and what that meant because tonight felt different. I let him throw me down on the bed, tossing my shades onto his night stand. They fell off and had this little scratch, this one here. I put my arms around his neck and he let me pretend I was strong enough to drag him down to kiss me, but he went willingly. 

I don’t know what I did to change his mind about the whole deflowering thing, but he probably just stopped caring. I don't know what it was. It was weird, that first time. For all his talk, all his trying to be aloof about this like it didn't matter, he was gentle as hell. Like, newborn virgin made of ice gentle. I’d expected rough. He did turn the lights off though, which I get, but the sun was coming up and we could still see. 

He kissed me the whole time, but I think he tried to pretend he wasn’t as into it as he was. I remember not knowing what to do with my body or my legs, or where my hands should be or what I was supposed to do with him, just feeling like a fucking idiot in general. Christ, I was so young. If I hadn’t gotten so used to him beating me up and fighting me, I would’ve said it hurt. It was sweaty and wet and spitty. It was _insane_. It was weirdly romantic, and he called me Dave once by accident. I cut his arms with my nails, and he'd kiss me to keep me quiet.

And then afterwards the sun was definitely coming up because it had taken forever. Because he was being so nice about it. I was lying on my stomach next to him, laughing when he lit a smoke.

“Smoking after sex? You’re so fucking cliché.” 

He blew smoke lazily towards the window, cigarette between two knuckles hanging in front of his face. He turned back to me and said, “Here,” and held it towards my mouth. I rolled over but without sitting up, I inhaled and he took it back. It was hot and spicy and scratchy and I knew the taste from him. “Now you’re cliché too.”

“I can’t believe you let a thirteen-year-old smoke, you’re the worst guardian in the world.”

I paused and watched him. I’d said both ‘thirteen’ and ‘guardian’, which I hadn’t mean to. Fucking mood ruiner. But he didn’t look upset. Smoke billowed out his nose like a dragon and he smiled.

_“I_ can’t believe you think you’re cool enough to smoke. It was a _puff_ , junior, keep your panties on.”

I kicked him or something, and he rolled over and pinned me to the bed and kissed me, warm and smoky and heavy. We eventually fell asleep. So. That was my first time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DEFINITELY three parts, so check back c: resolution w karkat.


	3. new boyfriends

Dave had sat up. He had his knees up and his arms across them, pressing his forehead into his arms because it’s like he was there again. He could feel the warm weight of his body on top of him, the springs of his shitty mattress, the smoky rasp in the back of his throat. 

“It was—” he started, swallowing. "—good. After that. I don’t know. We talked more. We actually got along. We fucked a lot. But it was only a few months. And then … this.” 

He wanted him back. He wanted him back more than anything in the entire fucking world that wasn’t a world anymore, more than anything in this universe and any other universe. If there was something he could do, he’d do it, but he knew he had no say. He couldn’t have fought any harder or better than Bro had when he died, it wouldn’t have mattered. He wanted to go back and have never played this fucking game. He knew about the Alpha kids, about Rose’s mom and John’s grandma and _him_ , but he wasn’t the him he wanted, he was some snot-nosed fucking kid, and that just made it worse. He wouldn’t love him. He was Dirk, but he wasn’t his _bro_. 

He wanted so badly for there to be some mistake here, some stupid fucked up mechanism of the game where there was a dream self or a God tier or literally any way that there could be another Bro for Dave to have that would remember him and love him, but he didn’t think there was. He didn’t understand any of this, he didn’t _want_ any of this, he didn’t want to be a knight or a god or savior of anything. He wanted to be at home sleeping until noon, never alone, and getting the shit beaten out of him and having sex that got better and more meaningful every single time. He wanted a cigarette. Or a thousand of them.

He didn’t think he was going to cry. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t. He kept his head down and balled his hands into fists so hard his nails cut into his hand because now that he was thinking about it he couldn’t stop. 

“And he’s dead,” he said obviously into the cold echo of the room. He hated how his voice sounded. “He’s fucking dead now and he’s not coming back, and it’s my fault for playing this stupid fucking game, and I would do _anything_ to get him back.”

Karkat had sat up too, watching him. He didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. He watched Dave’s back move with shaky breaths and shine white. 

“I _saw_ him, dead.” Dave's voice wavered. “I wanted to take his sword, to remember him, so I could use it. So I could have something. But it was—” He had to stop for a second, “It was right through him. I couldn’t have taken it without there being blood, and I couldn’t—” He had to stop again.

He felt a hand on his back. He almost shook it off on an _I don’t need your pity_ instinct, but he remembered it was Karkat and he liked it. It was warm and alive. 

“And now,” he said, more quietly, “There’s this kid, there’s another him. I can’t see him, man. I’ll fucking die. It’s not him.”

He heard Karkat move. He scooted next to him and put his arm around his shoulders, dropping his head to rest on one. 

“I’m sorry.” Karkat was unusually quiet, unusually peaceful and soft. He didn’t know Karkat had it in him, always with something to say or shout, insults to fling or offense to take. Never quiet, never tactful. But here he was, being all of that.

Dave felt his breath on his shoulder and tried to calm down. He didn’t want to see this new Dirk. He had a dead brother named Dirk and this kid had a dead brother named Dave but it ended there. They’d had different lives. He doubted this Dirk loved his brother the way he had, or hoped not—he needed that piece of self, some reassurance that his life wasn’t just a big alternate-universe mindfuck, that he had some piece of history to call his own.

He’d never done this before, but he moved Karkat’s arm off his shoulder and laced their fingers, laying their hands down on the sheets between them. He squeezed it as hard as he could, then let them lie. They’d never really held hands before; it was intimate. Karkat looked down at them, ears red. After a second, he rubbed his thumb against the pad of Dave’s palm. He could feel his claw scratch lightly. 

Karkat said, “You might not see him. Who the fuck knows.”

“Yeah,” Dave said quietly. He looked up, resting his chin on his arm. He hadn’t eaten Chinese food in so long, he forgot what it was like. Or what it was like to play a video game. He missed the sound of water running through the pipes in his walls, and he missed betting blow jobs on Mario Kart tournaments and staying up until the ungodly hours of the morning. 

He looked over at Karkat, who was … either sad or uncomfortable. Or both, he couldn’t tell. He wasn’t used to seeing him like this, genuinely pained in a way that wasn’t over-the-top offended, sarcastic, or mad. It was nice. So Dave said, “You have a nice face, when you’re not pissed off or yelling.”

When he saw him go red, he added, “I don’t know you hid your blood colour for so long when you blush like a tittering schoolgirl.”

“I don’t _normally,_ ” Karkat snapped, but he was smiling. “God, you’re so annoying.”

“You need to learn to take a compliment.” Dave smushed his cheek into his arm, looking at him. “The ‘sincerely heartfelt’ look works for you.”

He was still red, sharp teeth showing in an almost-smile. “Shut up.”

Dave sat up and leaned over to kiss him, but Karkat moved back. 

“Uh,” he cleared his throat. He didn’t look very happy anymore. Painfully apprehensive. “I’m … it’s good that you told me all that … I wanted to know, so, thanks or whatever, and I’m _sorry_ or whatever, but—do you really want to do this if you’re just trying to forget him?” 

Dave sat back, and before he could think about it he said, “How do I know you’re not doing this just to forget about Terezi?”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard because _one_ , you can’t forget someone you still essentially still live with, and _two_ , I wouldn’t try to forget her fucking a guy she also dated.” He looked at Dave with something he tried to avoid being pity, but ended up being kind of pitiful. “Don’t make it the same. It’s not the same thing. MIne's a valid question.”

Dave sighed hard. He unlaced their fingers, but kept his hand on top of Karkat’s, who didn’t move his away. “I’m not. It’s different.”

Karkat hummed. “I bet.”

“Christ, what do you want? Are you gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

_“Fine_.” He sighed. “I _like_ you, okay? A lot. You’re nothing like him and I want that, I don’t want to do this for any reason other than you being you, which I don’t fucking understand sometimes because you’re the _worst_. You’re an irritating piece of shit and I wanna be with you. You're nothing like him, and this isn't about him. So shut up.”

And he wouldn’t say this, but sometimes it did feel weird being like this with someone else—he still loved his brother, dead or not. But it got easier every day, and it was fun and he wasn’t lying, he wanted to be with him. He was scared every day of Karkat dying too, but they didn’t talk about that. That would happen whenever it happened, or it wouldn’t. They’d all die someday.

Karkat’s ears were back and he was blushing, but he still managed to look kind of smug. “Well, wasn’t that romantic.”

“Fuck you! Like you’re not totally killing for my—” Karkat smushed his cheeks and kissed him. Dave grabbed his arms and pulled him closer. His arms weren’t as big, and his hair wasn’t as soft. He was skinny and pointy and his claws ripped his shirts sometimes and he couldn’t suck dick because of his teeth, but that was okay. He’d taken some convincing, and it wasn’t natural in a biological way but it was fucking exquisite, and Dave liked being with him because it was effortless again. And no matter where or when else he wanted to be, he liked being here, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> done! hope you liked it. comment with any other fics you'd wanna see from me, i'm out of ideas for now c:


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